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CONROE, Texas (AP) - A convicted sex offender in Texas will be allowed to live alone in the community although he will remain under the supervision of the state’s civil commitment program, a judge ruled.

Erik Games will be the first offender in the state program to be allowed to live outside of confinement since 2005, the Houston Chronicle (https://bit.ly/1DhHkxs ) reported. The program, overseen by the state Office of Violent Sex Offender Management, allows for the continued confinement of repeat sex offenders after they have completed their criminal sentences.

It was not immediately clear where Games, 40, will live once he leaves a halfway house under the arrangement approved Friday by Judge Michael Seiler.

For the past six years, all civil commitment trials and hearings have been held in Seiler’s court, giving the Montgomery County district judge nearly sole authority over offenders in the program. His decision comes only weeks after agency officials announced they had no more space to house committed offenders.

More than 360 convicted sex offenders have been ordered into the civil commitment program since 1999. About half of those offenders have been returned to prison for violating administrative and treatment rules, the newspaper reported.

Games served prison time in two sexual assault cases involving females, according to information Saturday in Texas Department of Public Safety records of registered sex offenders. The cases were in Texas and Washington.